Introducing: Elf Works Aperture

The Elf decided to take a peek out of the woods. Granted, it's Winter now, and where Elf comes from, the Winters can be harsh. Trading her full manual SLR for the wonders of electronic wizardry, here's a first in a series of Digital Elf Works.

Model Workshop

My third lesson for the course. Three more to go.

Dust Off...

It's been five long years since I started on this project...since I embarked upon my Central European tour. Now, back in the office and after dusting off the years of powdered muck on this piece of 1/35th scale goodness, it's time to hammer her back into shape with the help of a little Tamiya extra thin cement, experience, patience and some planning. Hopefully, I'll be able to prime it grey within the next two weeks or so. We'll see. Today, they got a new Saeco Incanto Cappuccino Coffee Machine in the office. It's attracted a fair deal of attention, that contraption. But it sure can dish out a good cuppa espresso' pronto. Prego prego...

Lunch, Weekend

Caught up with GA for a while before she had to head off for some family business. She's now "combat" equipped with a lean, stainless steel mean IXUS 60 ...just a lanyard away from operational readiness. There is the "it's so new I gotta wrap it in cling wrap" phase to overcome though...which is quite normal really. At least you won't catch her leaving the plastic wrappers on the car seats of her car if she decided to get one...

Birthday Celebrations

The day was managed on two fronts. The first has been mentioned in the previous post...
More significantly, it was this :) Another year wiser Cheesepuff'.

Building A 1:35 Scale StuG III B...

There's been a bit of progress on the model front...just a little bit....from this:

But there were more important things to tend to later that day...

Vividly Vivacious

Remember, remember the 5th of November (and so the tagline goes). Just back from the movies. V for Vendetta. Portman gives a rather convincing performance as a more than credible sidekick to Hugo Weaving's rendition of the masked "crusader", far better than her romancing N-akin-(trip over me napkin)-Sky-tumbler. Having said that, it was down to some good ol' fashioned mutton soup (blow your top off peppery grade) and ginger tea with EO and JT. Loved the tag line on EO's cap which read:

Calling it a day. Service starts at 10' tomorrow.

Introducing: +K Mini

Watch out for this young man...

Wednesday Evenings

Birthday celebrations. Simple dinner, cakes, and time at home.

Even the car needed feeding.

Three-Dee-Canvas

I'm quite amazed when my model coach tells me there's a chap who churns out 52 complete models in a year. That's one per week, and they're fully painted, professional quality. Stunning. Well, my humble aspirations as I work on my own 3D canvas - to complete a StuG III Ausf. B. Nice squat vehicle that proved her worth 0n the Eastern Front almost 66 years ago, replicated here in 1/35th scale.

Sunday In Pictures

What's Sd.Kfz. 142?

This...



...late nights, weekends.

Transient

Life is transient. You don't realise it till you are blind sided one day by news that someone you know came "this close" to being seriously injured. But thank God for His Grace that things turned out the way it finally did. So we move on, and today marks the birthday of Gundam OKW. I'll let the pictures do the talking. It's late and once more, it's another one of those posts that ends off with me needing to hit the sack. There's a new addition to the gamut of gadgets that populate my already cluttered room...a dry box. Yes, another one, to combat the higher-than-70% humidity in this part of the tropics, so that no members of some fungi family infects them precious pieces of glass called lenses...

Of Fish and Funky Smells...

Here's an equation which relates to the olfactory department:

Heat + Liquid Fish = Funky Smells

At close to 35 °C in the city, this combination can prove quite potent, especially when it happens at the trunk of one's trusty steed. Everyone who happens to hitch a ride starts to ask you where it cames from...eventually, it was traced to a pretty thoroughly soaked felt piece that had seen quite a bit of post grocery shopping at the local fishery...
Having said that, all was not lost. It was once more hitting down town with the Dynamic Duo, The Tap and The General. Fine dining knows no bounds with these two, as is the case with fashion and the finer things in life. Cumi Bali was the place along Duxton Road downtown. If ever you do drop by this part of the tropics and are in the mood for some pretty knock out Indonesian cuisine, waste no more time and get your grubby mittens on some Sate and Chicken BBQ and an 18 Spiced Fish.

7th Day Tropical

The mid day heat is becoming quite unbearable, and the blinding sun seems to pierce whatever UV eye protection you can throw at it. Still, there's quite a bit to be seen in the city on what might otherwise have been average, ordinary day. Except that it was anything but such a day.

Two Weddings ...

...and an office recall. I mean, really. A text message came in circa 2358 hours. Just as I thought it was going to be a weekend on cruise control. So it was, that the first part of the weekend was spent in the office. I had just downed me usual caffeine fix in the middle of the night thinking that it was going to be a lazy Saturday, and didn't crash till round 3 am...so in the morning, it was really on auto-pilot. But the day eventually turned out pretty swell. Two very different weddings, but both with a joy that made one glad to have been part of it. One in the western part of the island, the other due south.


It was a midnight movie after that, then it was time to hit the sack. Simple day.

Day Six The Week

The week rounded up relatively quietly, and the weekend promises to be anything but. Two weddings, BS Group, Service, Modelling course and then a gathering. It'd be interesting to see how I weather through this one. Thursday night's sortie was nothing short of spectacular. Being the mad pilot that I am, I crashed me craft on the tarmac, got it run over by a taxi and miraculously emerged out of the whole thing with nothing more than a broken tail fin. Really, for a moment I stood there stunned, thinking that that was the end of it all. All that dosh down the drain....aaaaaaaaaanyway, time to hit the sack. Weekend's here.

Post 77

Morning After

You haven't quite been to this part of the Peninsular until you've been there. It was the four of us again heading out there and stuffing ourselves silly with some local fare. Not such a bad deal considering neither of us had had a proper meal for the day. We more than made up for it. A while later, we just realised that we've been away for quite a while when we saw the chef toss a dollop of ice cream into a cauldron of oil. Fried ice-cream they say...I say we've been out of town for a little too long...Holmes would have said it to be "elementary"...the locals would have just termed us some turtles on a mount.

Third Month

This is how I want to remember the March of 2006.

Sunday Retrospect

It's a bit early for such a thought, but a chronology of events of the day nonetheless.

Snap

It's been a while since the actual flight. But here it is. Night flying. And I'm a self professed dunce when it comes to trying to keep the UFO-thing in the air (read-I crashed mine big time...front guards broken, aerofoil skins torn, motor gear slipped, motor all banged up etc..). I mean, really, it's like a UFO...short of blinking lights that scream of an airborne version of a souped-up Honda, this thing is really as close as you get to one...any closer you'd probably end up on one of their "test" tables....bright lights (*a little passe, but well, a Mike Snow "Truth is out there" soundtrack in the background") and suddenly, your nose feels funny. It's late...and it's been a16 hour work day...my hands are not listening to me, and my legs are walking funny. Time to hit the sack. Laters people.